Page 312 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

312 from Italy to the Canary Islands

the other; to read what the ancients wrote, to write what posterity will read,
and, for the gift of writing and the literary art received by the ancients,
show to posterity, as to the ancients we cannot, a mindful and grateful soul;
but also to the ancients, not to be ungrateful, as far as we can, but to dis-
close their names, if unknown, if they have fallen into oblivion bring them
back to honour, bring them to light if they are buried in the rubble of time,
and transmit them as worthy of veneration to all great-grandchildren; keep
them in your heart, and always on the lips like a sweet thing, and finally,
loving, remembering, celebrating them, give them a tribute of gratitude, if
not fully adequate, definitely due to their merits.”

The great scenario of De vita solitaria is an uninterrupted conversation
with those in ancient times who were known for their greatness. The Poet
seeks out everyone who can support him and he chooses the ancients, those
who distinguished themselves for balance, justice, valour and whom he
glimpses as true companions in his hours of solitude and fruitful idleness.
The Poet purports to stem the cruel work of Time and hinder Time’s plan,
namely the accumulation of centuries and therefore the advent of oblivi-
on, the forgetfulness of all the greatness that has happened, of that which
touched universal truth. Of course, the Fortunate Isles also have a place
in De vita solitaria, very close to us, in an extreme yet forthcoming West.
Petrarca’s daring judgment of the inhabitants of the Fortunate Isles is
not very flattering, comparing them to the Hyperboreans, who live happy
and in solitude (again solitude as a value). Let us read the Poet in a passage
of the eleventh chapter of De vita solitaria, “Hic ad occasum versus tran-
seo philosophos gallorum, quorum inter scriptores crebra mentio – drui-
das dixere – solitos in specubus ac remotis in saltibus docere nobilissimos
gentis sapientiam atque facundiam, et naturas rerum, et siderum motus,
et deorum arcana, et immortalitatem animarum et alterius vite statum.
Transeo Thilem et Hibernem, quorum altera scribentium variegate famo-
sissima sed ignota est, altera vero notissima. Cuius gentem, opum rerum-
que civilium contemptricem, in super et agricolture negligentem, pascua
et silvas incolore compertum habeo, cui pro delitiis otium, pro summis
opibus sit libertas. Felicem gentem dicerem, nisi alia, si modo vera est,
infamia et morum malignitate retraherer. Pretereo Fortunatas Insulas, que
estremo sub occidente, ut nobis et viciniore set notiores, sic quam longis-